Victim's family sues hotel chains over slaying

COLUMBIA | The Marriott and Choice International hotel chains face a lawsuit from the children of a Columbia hotel manager shot to death days after another employee was raped.

Fifty-five-year-old Cynthia White was working alone on the overnight shift at a Comfort Inn last November when 22-year-old Dwight Hayes entered the hotel and shot her in the head. Nine days earlier, another clerk was raped at the hotel, which was then a Fairfield Inn.

White's three children filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in July. They claim the hotel failed to increase security measures after the first attack.

The hotel's owner said surveillance cameras were installed soon after White's death.